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European Journal of Sociology the Performativity of Networks European Journal of Sociology http://journals.cambridge.org/EUR Additional services for European Journal of Sociology: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here The Performativity of Networks Kieran Healy European Journal of Sociology / Volume 56 / Issue 02 / August 2015, pp 175 - 205 DOI: 10.1017/S0003975615000107, Published online: 07 August 2015 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0003975615000107 How to cite this article: Kieran Healy (2015). The Performativity of Networks. European Journal of Sociology, 56, pp 175-205 doi:10.1017/S0003975615000107 Request Permissions : Click here kieran healy The Performativity of Networks Abstract The “performativity thesis” is the claim that parts of contemporary economics and finance, when carried out into the world by professionals and popularizers, reformat and reorganize the phenomena they purport to describe, in ways that bring the world into line with theory. Practical technologies, calculative devices and portable algorithms give actors tools to implement particular models of action. I argue that social network analysis is performative in the same sense as the cases studied in this literature. Social network analysis and finance theory are similar in key aspects of their development and effects. For the case of economics, evidence for weaker versions of the performativity thesis is quite good, and the strong formulation is circumstantially supported. Network theory easily meets the evidential threshold for the weaker versions. I offer empirical examples that support the strong (or “Barnesian”) formulation. Whether these parallels are a mark in favor of the thesis or a strike against it is an open question. I argue that the social network technologies and models now being “performed” build out systems of generalized reciprocity, connectivity, and commons-based production. This is in contrast both to an earlier network imagery that emphasized self-interest and entrepreneurial exploitation of structural opportunities, and to the model of action typically considered to be performed by economic technologies. Keywords: Performativity; Economics; Social Network Analysis; Internet; Algorithms. The realities of social structure are more blurred [.] One special case are the procedures of social research, which to an increasing extent are being built in as an accepted part of the validation and legitimation procedures in current American society, for better or worse [White 1965: 10]. Several stories might be, and are, told about eigenvectors [Breiger 2000: 110]. S OCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS, broadly construed, is performative in much the same theoretical sense and, increasingly, on much the same empirical scale as the economic and financial models examined by “social studies of finance” [Callon 1998; Mac- Kenzie and Millo 2003; MacKenzie 2006; Muniesa and Callon 2007]. 175 Kieran HEALY, Duke University [[email protected]] European Journal of Sociology, 56, 2 (2015), pp. 175–205—0003-9756/15/0000-900$07.50per art + $0.10 per page ªEuropean Journal of Sociology 2015.doi:10.1017/S0003975615000107 kieran healy That is the main claim of this paper. I argue that there are three principal reasons for believing it. First, the two cases are alike. Considered as intellectual and practical projects, the structure and trajectory of social network analysis and finance theory show striking similarities in form. Second, the standard of proof is within reach. While the evidence for weak or moderate versions of the perform- ativity thesis is quite good, its strongest formulations are only circumstantially supported by the best evidence we have at present. Thus, the case for a performative dimension to network theory has about the same level of empirical support—which is to say, pretty good—as that for economics. Whether we should interpret this as a mark in favor of the performativity thesis, or a strike against it, is an open question. Third, and more positively, the evidence is relatively new. Paradigmatic cases of the performativity of economics go back some decades, but the performative moment of network analysis is more recent and much less well-explored. I offer several examples. Network concepts and images are by now central not just to the economic sociology of markets, but to theories of social exchange in general. The importance of network ties to market exchange is a core aspect of what, 25 years ago, was beginning to be called the new economic sociology [Granovetter 1985]. We visualize the circulation of people and goods in society as flow in a dynamically evolving structure of network relations. As a disciplinary project, network theory has grown from a peripheral position in the early 1970s—or, more charitably, from its niche as a respected but specialized subfield—into a central project within contemporary sociology. Network theory has proliferated and diffused across the intellectual landscape over this period with great success. Its ability to cash out some of its most important theoretical concepts and images in formal methods and usable tools has been a vital part of this process. As in the case of theories of finance and their expression in financial markets, we see network theory and its analytical toolkit embedding and extending themselves in a range of settings. The growth of network theory within sociology, in other words, has been accompanied—and is perhaps by now overshadowed—by its practical embedding in the world at large. Asecondaryclaimofthispaperisthatwhat we are seeing “performed” in these settings is quite different from the model of economic action investigated by MacKenzie, Callon and others, and also quite different from an earlier (and quite successful) effort to evangelize the network gospel. An older public image of the importance of networks in exchange was highly instrumental. 176 the performativity of networks It emphasized the benefits of “networking” for individual careers, and the strategic advantage to managers of having well-structured networks with respect to their employees, their suppliers, or their competitors. Despite the success of network imagery as a vehicle for entrepreneurial advantage in competitive markets, the network technologies and models that are being implemented most widely (at least in the public arena) are those that emphasize network effects in their aspect as channels of generalized reciprocity, connectivity, and community-building. While these aspects are not inimical to profit opportunities, in this sense the performativity of networks trends against that of economics. In what follows, I lay out the performativity thesis in more detail and assess the parallels between the cases of finance and network theory, providing a series of examples for the latter case. I then return to the question of the usefulness of performativity as a concept. The performativity thesis Economic sociologists argue about whether it makes sense to think of economic knowledge as performative. Originally articulated by Callon [1998] and refined by MacKenzie and Millo [2003], and MacKenzie [2006], the performativity thesis is that economics produces a body of formal models and transportable techniques that, when carried out into the world by its professionals and popularizers, reformats and reorganizes the phenomena the models purport to describe. This is a suggestive idea, and one that admits of stronger and weaker interpretations. In its strongest form, the performative process brings the empirical phenomena into line with the original model. Of particular interest in this approach is the focus—inherited from science studies—on how performative projects are accomplished by way of practical technologies, reproducible models and portable algorithms. The success of economics is not just a matter of a partic- ular conception of rationality serving as a ceremonial gloss on social action [Meyer and Rowan 1977]; nor is it a simple instance of ideological indoctrination [Marwell and Ames 1981]. Rather, tools implementing formal models of action—“calculative devices”—are put in the hands of social agents by the model-builders or their representatives. These devices act as “cognitive prostheses” that enable actors to accomplish calculative tasks previously beyond their 177 kieran healy reach, but which are required by the theoretical models. When incorporated into the everyday work of market agents, these devices allow real settings to better approximate the original models, and their assumptions. This is the “performative loop” in its most interesting, so-called “Barnesian” form. Granovetter argued that a social theory of markets should begin with a view of actors as embedded in an evolving structure of concrete social relations. From this perspective, neoclassical economics is fundamentally misconceived, either because “the fact that actors may have social relations with one another has been treated, if at all, as a frictional drag that impedes competitive markets”, or because, when they are examined, models “invariably abstract away from the history of relations and their position with respect to other relations” [Granovetter 1985: 485-486].1 The strong version of the performativity thesis, by contrast, is a kind of backhanded compliment from sociology to economics. Complimentary because it acknowledges the success of economics in prosecuting its claims to objective knowledge of the economy, but backhanded because it claims that this success is not what it seems. Economics turns out
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